A/HRC/4/40 page 17 31. It is therefore not surprising that the Working Group has seen an increase in the number of cases brought to its attention in which more than one Government is involved in the, allegedly arbitrary, deprivation of a suspected terrorist’s freedom. The following cases dealt with by the Working Group provide some recent examples. B. Cases illustrating the Working Group’s concerns 32. Opinion No. 43/2005 relates to a man handed over by the security forces of Myanmar to the police of China, although he had been recognized as a refugee by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In China he was detained and put on trial on charges of terrorist activities, which the Working Group found to be aimed at suppressing his “legitimate political and not violent activities carried out peacefully and in exercise of his rights to the freedom of association and expression” (para. 23). 33. Opinion No. 47/2005 concerns three men of Yemeni origin. One of them was arrested in the Islamic Republic of Iran and handed over by the security forces to the Government of Afghanistan, which, after three months of keeping him in detention, in turn handed him over to the Government of the United States. After one month at Baghram Air Base, outside Kabul, he was transported to Guantánamo Bay, were he remained for approximately two years. In May 2004, the United States authorities removed him to Yemen, where he has been in detention ever since. The second man was arrested by the police in Indonesia and removed to Jordan; the third man also lived in Indonesia and was arrested at Amman airport. Both were interrogated and tortured by Jordanian security forces before being handed over to United States military forces, which held them consecutively at two secret underground detention facilities (so-called “black sites”) for 18 and 20 months respectively. In both places, the two men were interrogated about their activities in Afghanistan and Indonesia, and about their knowledge of other persons suspected of terrorist activities. Thereafter, the Government of the United States transferred them to Yemen, where they remain detained since May 2005. None of the transfers from the custody of one State to another was accompanied by any judicial or other hearing or extradition proceedings. In all three cases, the Yemeni authorities informed the source that the detainees were being held without charges at the request of the United States authorities and would remain detained in Yemen pending receipt of their files from the United States authorities for investigation. Such files, however, have not been forthcoming notwithstanding the respectively one and two years that have elapsed.2 34. Opinion No. 16/2006 concerns five men of Syrian origin who had been living in the United Kingdom, Turkey, the United States (two) and Bulgaria. All were deported to the Syrian Arab Republic, where they were immediately arrested at the airport, detained at secret locations or otherwise incommunicado, and put on trial before special courts grossly violating fair-trial guarantees. 2 The Working Group was informed that subsequent to the adoption of its opinion, a Yemeni court sentenced them to a short prison term and they were released.